Archive for August, 2007

Barrett, Butcher, Turner, improvised music, 7 September

31 August 2007 at 11:31 am · Filed under Concerts, Music ·Tagged , , , ,

One for your next week:

 

FRIDAY 7th SEPTEMBER

8pm, £6 / £4

Small But Perfectly Formed presents an evening of improvised music

John Butcher, saxophones

Richard Barrett, live electronics

Roger Turner, percussion

New trio plays for the first time in London.

+

Adam Linson, double bass

Solo, real time processing and sampling

RED ROSE CLUB

129 Seven Sisters Road, London, N7 7QG

Tube: Finsbury Park

Buses: 4, 29, 153, 259, 254…

 

John Butcher leads an almost scientific survey of the sonic possibilities of the saxophone being in his studio work or in live while performing improvisation or compositions. He has performed with countless international improvisers and is hard to avoid in festivals across the world. John’s also performed twice this year along the film Screen Play by Christian Marclay.

www.johnbutcher.org.uk/

 

Richard Barrett’s work encompasses both composition and improvisation, ranging from chamber music to innovative uses of live electronics and collaborations with visual artists.

Recent projects include NO, commissioned by the BBC Symphony Orchestra premiered in February 2005 at the Barbican Hall in London and Illuminer le Temps for ensemble, premiered by MusikFabrik in Cologne in March 2006.

Richard Barrett also continues his nineteen-year collaboration with Paul Obermayer in the electronic duo FURT and performs regularly with vocalist Ute Wassermann, saxophonist Evan Parker, bassist Adam Linson, cellist Arne Deforce and numerous ensembles from both compositional and improvisational areas.

www.cmpromotions.co.uk/client_news/rb01.htm

 

Roger Turner has worked in ad hoc and group collaborations with Toshinori Kondo, Derek Bailey, Trio’z with Carlos Zingaro and Tom Cora, Evan Parker, Cecil Taylor, Otomo Yoshihide, Shelley Hirsch, Joëlle Léandre; Keith Rowe; Wolfgang Fuchs and many others.

Collaborations with film-makers and image projection include work with Martin Klapper & Chikako Oyama and music for dance includes work with Alexander Frangenheim’s concepts of doing (Stuttgart); Matthew Hawkins Company (London); Carlos Zingaro’s Encontros projects (Lisbon & Macau, China).

http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/mturner.html

 

 

Double Bassist Adam Linson, originally from Los Angeles, lives since 1999 in Berlin where he designed and programmed his own interactive software for the real time integration of signal processing and sampling into live musical performance. His solo and duet electro-acoustic works have been presented at several concert series and festivals across Europe including the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Linson has performed with Evan Parker, Paul Lytton, Philipp Wachsmann, Agustí Fernandez, Lawrence Casserley, Aleks Kolkowski, Axel Dörner, Jon Rose…
www.percent-s.com/

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New Music Plans for the Wigmore Hall

31 August 2007 at 9:40 am · Filed under Music ·Tagged , ,

Interesting interview in the Times this morning with John Gilhooly, director of the Wigmore Hall – “the West End’s unlikeliest success story”:

At a time when London’s theatres, concert halls and even certain opera houses seem to be offering nothing except easy-listening soufflés in a desperate effort to pull in the crowds, the Wigmore Hall – spiritual home of highbrow chamber music and classical song – has announced a sixfold increase in its surplus, a 25 per cent growth in income, a 300 per cent rise in first-time visitors, and the highest attendance levels in its 106-year history.

The most gratifying thing about this outstanding success is the part played by new music. As Gilhooly says,

Last year I programmed three concerts of György Kurtág’s music. My trustees cautiously said: ‘Let’s see how it goes.’ But the concerts almost sold out. What’s more, 80 per cent of the audience were newcomers. This thing about the Wigmore being an exclusive club really irritates me, because it’s simply not true. We are acquiring a huge new constituency.

Bingo – and you can count me among those newcomers. Actually, my experience of the Kurtágs playing extracts from Játékok at the Wigmore, as well as Radius’s recital of a range of contemporary works, warmed me to the idea of the Wigmore as a venue for new music. For one thing, it’s a really good size for it – trying to fill the Barbican, RFH or Albert Hall (!) with some of this repertoire is a fool’s errand. Filling the Wigmore’s 540 seats is a much more realistic prospect. But secondly, the legendary acoustic really is worth its reputation. Radius’s performance of Cage’s Five was a revelation, so rare is it for works like this to be given a hearing in such acoustically friendly surroundings. Oh, how I would love a concert of Wandelweiser composers in here. Or Nono, or Lachenmann, or Feldman, or Lucier, or …
The best news about the Wigmore’s recent change in direction towards the new is that this is just the beginning. Gilhooly has big plans:

From 2009 the hall will be commissioning and premiering up to 12 pieces of chamber music each year – a huge financial commitment that will be paid for by a new endowment fund. In addition, Gilhooly will present a twice-yearly festival devoted to a living composer. There are giants among them. The 91-year-old Henri Dutilleux is featured this season, and the (by then 100-year-old) Elliott Carter in 2008-09, with all five of his string quartets being played in a day.

Long may it continue.

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Prioritizing musical education

30 August 2007 at 11:54 am · Filed under Music ·Tagged , , ,

Philippa Ibbotson’s recent Guardian article on the teaching of musical instruments in schools somehow passed me by, but it makes interesting reading. According to a survey carried out by insurers Norwich Union, four out of five of us Britishers harbour regrets. The remarkable thing, as Ibbotson points out, is that the top regret (shared by 13% of respondents) is “Not learning to play a musical instrument”:

More than not having paid attention at school, it seems, or not having done the right thing by a relationship, the number one sorrow was a lack of musical ability.

Perhaps, she hopes, this might spur the government – which has done everything in its power to squeeze instrumental tuition out of schools and beyond the reach of most parents – to start taking schools music more seriously. I hope so too – but Gordon Brown’s moves on education so far as PM (even if publications like the Times Higher have broadly welcomed them) should leave those of us in the arts distinctly uneasy. Reading not too hard between the lines, the formula that lies behind Brown education policy so far seems to be: education = industrially valuable skills and knowledge = healthy economy. This is an equation that works reasonably well for technology and the sciences, but – despite evidence that the creative industries are an extremely valuable component of the British economy – not one that works quite as neatly for the hit-and-miss, unpredictable arts. What with this new emphasis on education as training for industry, as well as the Olympics hogging all the cultural budget, expect the situation to get worse, rather than better.

On a more positive note, though, Stephen Maddock, chief executive of the CBSO, responds to Ibbotson’s article with some examples of outreach being made by British orchestras.

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CD Review: Erdem Helvacıoğlu: Altered Realities (New Albion)

27 August 2007 at 2:42 pm · Filed under Music, New Albion, Reviews ·Tagged , ,

Altered Realities

A limpid, August evening of a record that should appeal to fans of Seefeel’s Quique and Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint. Helvacıoğlu builds rich electronic environments from melodic, even campfireside acoustic guitar work. At times you wish that the acoustic and electronic sides would enter into more of a dialogue with one another, even have a bit of a fight – certain passages sound as though one was composed and the other simply laid on top – but when it works best – as when a crackling house pulse emerges underneath the gentle arpeggios of ‘Frozen Resophonic’ – it is a rather lovely addition to your summer soundtrack.

The seven pieeces on this album rarely stay still for long, and it is in the electronics where all the action is – for a live, one man performance there’s a heck of a lot going on in there. The guitar work is generally straightforward and is often the only thing holding all the sounds to any kind of unity with simple, repeating melodic figures and harmonic sequences.

Listening to this album I started to think of another virtuoso show for solo instrument and electronics, Ferneyhough’s Time and Motion Study II. I think too much, I know. It’s several time zones away from this album and not an entirely fair comparison, but Ferneyhough’s piece is still a pioneering work in a genre that is now commonplace (it seems every live musician in London got a Loop Station for Christmas last year). But still, it probed issues about the relationship of a performer to their instrument, to the performer and their score, the instrument and the sound produced; all questions that arise whenever I hear that space between a resonant body and a pulse of electrons, between the physical and the virtual. Other than the obvious, I suppose the difference is that the technology Helvacıoğlu is using is so much more powerful than was available to Ferneyhough in 1976. You don’t need a shed full of ring modulators to make an interesting bleep any more. And there is a temptation in that to shift focus away from the instrument, the performed, physical sound source, and towards the less predictable effects of chips and electronic processes.

I’m not yet so old-fashioned as to have a problem with this, but when the sound source remains at the centre of the sound, then you do beg questions: why that instrument, why those notes, why that playing technique? And I’m not sure Helvacıoğlu’s music really has answers. Sure, an acoustic guitar, with its crisp attacks, rich harmonic spectrum and nice, fat resonance, is a great source, but since you’re here, playing it, is there anything particularly guitary about this music, or would a good keyboard patch have done just as well? Maybe, maybe not – but the truth is that as I listen while writing these words the sheer disarming beauty of this record requires that I stop worrying and learn to love a little more. So relax and enjoy.

Update (30/12/07): Altered Realities has been included in the ‘Best of 2007′ lists of All About Jazz and Textura.

Update (19/02/08): Read a short review of  Helvacıoğlu played by the BOAC All-Stars here.

“Frozen Resophonic” (mp3)
from “Altered Realities”
by Erdem Helvacioğlu
(New Albion Records)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at eMusic
Buy at Rhapsody
Buy at Napster
More On This Album

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USA, USA

24 August 2007 at 5:46 pm · Filed under Non-music, Rambler at large ·Tagged

So, my friends got married in New Haven, my girl and I went to NYC, then drove in a big square across Pennsylvania, up to Niagara, across to Albany and back down. It was hot, we ate too much, and loveditloveditlovedit. Oh, what the hell, have some notes and a photolog …

Soundtrack: Mikel Rouse, Music for Minorities (£2 from Academy); Corey Dargel, Removable Parts (This is funny stuff, Corey, but it also creeps me the heck out!)

Wordtrack: Sergei Lukyanenko, Nightwatch; Virginia Woolf, The Waves

Nice to meet you: Alex, Molly (congratulations again! Hope the cold got better!)

Nice to see you again: Corey, Yvan

Good drinkin’: Cherry Wheat beer
Good eatin’: Cafe 28 deli

Best view: the restrooms (seriously!) at the Rainbow Rooms, Rockefeller Center.

Of the Dark: New York’s finest, parked in traffic, going nowhere on a pedestrian crossing, just using your siren to intimidate pedestrians trying to cross on a Walk sign. My best London ‘What the f*ck?!’ gestures won a laugh and not a beating. Also: US border guards at Niagara Falls. The most inappropriately incompetent, lazy, smugly authoritarian individuals I’ve had the misfortune to deal with. And I’ve travelled through Heathrow. Oh, and pointing at an elderly Japanese couple who have been waiting patiently for 20 minutes to be allowed back onto their tour bus and drawling “These folks from Chinatownland …” doesn’t exactly meet your advertised pledges of courtesy and respect, pal.

Keeping the scores even for the Light: the lovely officer of New York State Police who let us off with a warning for hitting 85 on the Interstate… thank you, officer.

Best swing from falling-off-stool delight to goggle-eyed incomprehensibility: girl in martini bar in Buffalo – “You’re from London? Oh, I love London! B-but what are you doing here?!”

WTF-check-your-perspective moment: From TV news: “It’s 101 degrees in Texas at the moment, but don’t worry if you’re going to the game – they’re closing the roof and the air conditioning will be on.” While we Brits worry about the carbon differential between organic and non-organic beef, Texans are air conditioning sports stadia…

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Musician Deathwatch

23 August 2007 at 11:40 am · Filed under Musician Deathwatch ·Tagged , , ,

del.icio.us/skills/obituary | About this list

A long one this week as there’s some catching up to do. Some BIG names in here too :(

:: Jon Lucien Smooth jazz singer and songwriter
:: Madilu Système Congolese rumba singer
:: John Wallowitch Cabaret singer and songwriter
:: Louis Moyse Founder of the Malboro Music School
:: Rowland Sturges Concert pianist
:: Sal Mosca Jazz pianist
:: Edward Zambara Singing teacher
:: Tikhon Khrennikov First Secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers
:: Tony Wilson Factory records founder
:: Johnny Frigo Jazz violinist and double bassist
:: Max Roach Drummer
:: Alan Blyth Critic
:: Earl Watkins Jazz drummer and union official
:: Lee Hazlewood Songwriter
:: Art Davis Double bassist
:: Florian Pittis Romanian folk musician
:: Tommy Makem Irish folk singer
:: Louis Moyse Flautist and composer
:: ‘Uncle’ Joe Turner Blues drummer
:: Nicola Zaccaria Operatic bass
:: Don Arden Pop manager and promoter
:: Ron Miller Pop songwriter
:: Teresa Stitch-Randall Operatic soprano
:: Jerry Hadley Operatic tenor
:: Johnny Hope Jazz saxophonist
:: Boots Randolph Saxophonist
:: Robert Burns Robert Buras
:: Kelly Johnson Metal guitarist
:: Bill Pinkney Singer with the Drifters
:: Hy Zaret Lyricist
:: Natalia Karp Pianist
:: George Melly Jazz singer
:: Régine Crispin Operatic soprano
:: Dame Thea King Clarinettist and pianist
:: Beverly Sills Opera singer
:: Kim Tolliver Northern Soul singer
:: Sophie Legg Romany singer
:: Billie Beatty Guitarist
:: Hank Medress Doo-wop singer
:: Tony Thompson Singer and songwriter
:: Richard Bell Rock keyboardist and songwriter
:: Mac Morgan Bass-baritone
:: Big Joe Duskin Blues and boogie pianist
:: Rick Gunnell Music promoter
:: Nellie Lutcher Jazz singer and pianist
:: Stack Bundles Rapper
:: Lynne Randell Pop singer
:: Christopher Rowland Violinist and string quartet leader

Rest in Peace.

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The perils of inadequate metadata

23 August 2007 at 11:09 am · Filed under Music ·Tagged ,

Received from Amazon this morning:

Hello, Tim Johnson,

As someone who has purchased or rated books by Alex Ross, you might like to know that Wonder Woman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told: Greatest Stories Ever will be released on 24 August 2007. You can pre-order yours for just £7.25 (34% off the RRP) by following the link below.

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classicLive Launches Internet Concerts

23 August 2007 at 9:43 am · Filed under Concerts, Music ·Tagged , , , ,

In the inbox this morning:

classicLive sells tickets for Internet concerts by top world orchestras

classicLive is a new Internet portal – an international network offering live concerts by some of the world’s finest orchestras. The system requirement for this service providing TV-standard images and almost CD-standard sound is broadband access of only 1Mb. Access for the portal concerts at www.classiclive.com can be purchased online by credit card per day, week and 30 days.

classicLive is a unique concept providing access to many great orchestras via a single portal. The first classicLive concert webcast will be from the Sibelius Festival in Lahti, Finland on September 6, when the Lahti Symphony Orchestra under its Chief Conductor Osmo Vänskä will be performing the Kullervo Symphony by Jean Sibelius. All orchestral concerts from the festival will be streamed live and concert webcasts continue throughout the season.

The second orchestra to appear on classicLive, on September 25, will be the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra under General Music Director Zoltán Kocsis. In addition to works by Bartók and Brahms the concert will include Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 3 with Alexei Volodin as the soloist.

Along with these two orchestras, a Letter of Intent has been signed by the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Stockholm Royal Philharmonic. Other possible partners include the Philharmonia Orchestra from London, the Mariinsky Theatre and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Each classicLive concert will first be streamed live via the Internet all over the world. Following brief editing it will then be visible and audible on demand at any time during the next three weeks. The rapid repertoire turnover will thus maintain interest in the portal among classicLive subscribers.

“The short-range objective is to create a limited premier classicLive league of no more than15 orchestras,” says Tuomas Kinberg, General Manager of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. “There will be mainly one orchestra from each country. One thing the members of this organically-growing network will have in common is that they will all be among the very finest orchestras their country has to offer. We are very proud to be part of this network.”

Osmo Vänskä, also Music Director of the Minnesota Orchestra, considers this service a historical moment. “classicLive offers a platform where, for the first time, great, dynamic orchestras can provide concerts to music lovers around the world.”

“No doubt, we are writing music history,” Géza Kovács the Director General of the Hungarian National Philharmonic agrees. “Nowadays when we often feel that classical music is in danger and when more and more people use Internet, classicLive offers real value for millions of people. We are proud to be a member of this ‘exclusive club’ where the main rule is to give people the joy of music on the highest level.”

classicLive is the first major commercial producer of classical music content on the Internet. The pioneering nature is what appeals to the number-one ensembles in various countries. David Whelton, Managing Director of the Philharmonia Orchestra says:

“As the first orchestra to present a live concert webcast, the Philharmonia Orchestra is delighted to offer its support to classicLive in launching this exciting new initiative, which will bring the highest quality live concerts to a new global audience. We are in very positive discussions with classicLive about becoming active partners in this project and wish them every success.”

Roy McEwan, Managing Director of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, said:

“classicLive opens up a whole range of exciting opportunities in bringing classical music of the highest quality to audiences across the world. We wish this adventurous new initiative well on its launch and look forward to exploring further the prospects of being part of classicLive”.

Valery Gergiev, the Artistic & General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre, emphasises the importance of reaching the global audiences:

“The Mariinsky Theatre supports all efforts to overcome the obstacles of distance and borders, to bring performances of great music to the doorsteps of faraway audiences.”

“The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra is very excited at the chance of being involved in classicLive,” says Executive and Artistic Director Stefan Forsberg. “The idea of providing concerts on the web corresponds completely with our ambition of being an orchestra in touch with the future. We are thrilled at the possibility to make the music of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic accessible to as many people as possible worldwide.”

classicLive offers new potential in the field of music education, as Pieter Pryck, the Manager of Artistic Department of the Rotterdam Philharmonic, says:

“classicLive is the most fascinating and modern medium to bring classical music to everybody; young people especially.”

Conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste, who will begin as Artistic Advisor of the Lahti Symphony in 2008, sees the value of classicLive as new approach to the concert tradition.

“I am glad to participate in this visionary effort that will bring classical music to music lovers and new audiences all over the world. This exciting new media format will show classical music as part of our daily life and will help to generate new audiences.”

Main responsibility for the service lies with Saltarello Ltd. The technical platform and operations are being supplied by TietoEnator Corp., another Finnish company.

“We have developed the concept for the classicLive portal, the visual image and the streaming technology in close partnership with Saltarello,” reports Kalle Simola, Consultant, from TietoEnator Digital Innovations. “Designing this unique subscriber service has been both interesting and challenging, combining the planning of a good consumer experience, our streaming technology know-how and the construction of the portal’s technical platform.”

Each network orchestra will be responsible for the initial production of its Internet concert streaming videos in accordance with the high artistic and technical quality specifications applying to portal concerts. The portal language is English.

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Oakland Opera: The Turn of the Trapeze

22 August 2007 at 12:21 pm · Filed under Music ·Tagged , , , ,

Anyone reading from Oakland? If you are, go see this and pls to explain how “high-flying aerial performance artists The Starlings Trapeze Duo” are in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw.

kthxbye

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Minimalism, Pole to Pole

21 August 2007 at 1:48 pm · Filed under Music ·Tagged , , , , ,

Everyone will have read it by now of course, but while I was away the NYT’s ‘The Greatest Minimalist Albums: Ever!’ article caused a lot of comment. I haven’t got much to add to Kyle and Steve’s remarks other than to say that the fact that the NYT even attempted such a survey puts most of the British press to shame.

But I did want to comment on Norman Lebrecht’s response at Slipped Disc. According the Fact-Checker Supreme himself:

The so-called East European Holy Mininmalism of Part and Gorecki was pretty much sui generis, rooted in counter-communist early Christian monodies, unaware of US trends.

Not entirely true. A quick check in my Warsaw Autumn 2004 book shows that although Reich (Clapping Music) wasn’t heard at Warsaw until 1977, one year after Górecki’s Third Symphony was completed, by this time Terry Riley’s music had been performed no fewer than four times: Keyboard Studies in 1968, In C in 1969, Dorian Reeds in 1973, and the Riley-John Cale collaboration Church of Anthrax in 1974. More revealing for a demonstration of Polish awareness of American minimal trends is the fact that the influential Polish chamber ensemble Warsztat Muzyczny (Music Workshop) were the performers of In C, and their leader, the composer and pianist Zygmunt Krauze, was also one of the performers of Keyboard Studies (along with John Tilbury and Gérard Fremy, neither strangers to the American scene). Krauze’s own music had, since the early 60s, been following a small-m minimal aesthetic, influenced by the Unistic paintings of Władysław Strzemiński.

Strzemiński, Unistic Composition no.11 (1930–32)

I don’t know precisely how aware Krauze was of American minimalism at the time of his Five Unistic Pieces (1963), say, but certainly by the end of the decade he appears to have been reasonably clued up and, as a friendly colleague of Górecki’s (Warsztat Muzyczny commissioned Muzyka 4 in 1970), may well have discussed it with him

I can’t speak for Pärt to the same extent, but I find it extremely hard to believe that works like Perpetuum mobile (1963) and Solfeggio (1964), both long pre-dating the ‘Holy Minimalist’ tag, were as sui generis as Lebrecht would like to believe. (Incidentally, Perpetuum mobile went down a storm at Warsaw Autumn in 1964 and was swiftly performed in several other Soviet bloc capitals.) In any case, the idea of minimalism arising miraculously from the ‘inspirational’ isolation of the Soviet bloc (a cliché that runs a little close to Dryden’s noble savage for my taste) is somewhat misleading.

There’s a second, more obvious, blooper in Lebrecht’s post – Michael Nyman didn’t, of course, write the score to The Pianist (that would be The Piano). The honour should have gone, instead, to Wojciech Kilar, another Pole whose music – ironically – has shown more than a passing influence from minimalism itself in the past.

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